http://www.foe.org/

Happy tax day!

Okay, truth be told, if you're like me, you may not associate the fondest feelings with April 15.
But the same can't be said for many of our country's biggest polluters. Industries like big oil and dirty biofuels love tax time because Uncle Sam hands them billions in giveaways.
Just one example: Last year big oil giant Exxon Mobil reported a record $45.2 billion profit, but paid zero dollars to the IRS.1 That's outrageous!
Write a letter to the editor of your local paper demanding an end to wasteful tax giveaways to big oil and bad biofuels.
A key reason Exxon Mobil gets away with this? A recent Friends of the Earth analysis found that the oil and gas industry is slated to receive $32.9 billion in tax giveaways and other federal subsidies between 2009 and 2013.
Oil and gas production isn't the only polluting activity that provides corporations with windfalls from your tax dollars. The corporate giants -- including big oil -- that sell dirty corn ethanol, received $5 billion in 2009 from just one of many ethanol tax breaks. Corn ethanol causes even more global warming pollution than conventional gasoline, and growing corn for fuel causes harmful fertilizer and pesticide runoff. It is not something we should be subsidizing. But according to a recent Friends of the Earth study,3 if these giveaways to dirty ethanol continue, taxpayers like you and me will have funded the biofuels industry to the tune of $400 billion by the year 2022.
Unfortunately, much of the public has no idea that these massive, pollution-promoting giveaways exist.
Will you help us sound the alarm by submitting a letter to the editor to your local newspaper today?
Enough is enough. If you're like me, you work hard to earn your tax dollars. Our representatives in Congress ought to spend our money wisely and invest in clean energy that is in the public interest -- not waste our money on polluter lobbyists' pet projects. Help us send them that message through the media.
Please join me in writing a letter to the editor calling for an end to giveaways to big oil and dirty biofuels today.
Thanks,
Kate McMahon / Friends of the Earth
Sources:
[1] "Exxon Mobil Paid No Federal Income Tax in 2009," Think Progress, http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/06/exxon-tax/
[2] "Big Oil, Bigger Giveaways," Friends of the Earth, http://www.foe.org/pdf/FoE_Oil_Giveaway_Analysis_2008.pdf
[3] "A Boon to Bad Biofuels," Friends of the Earth, http://www.foe.org/sites/default/files/FOE%20VEETC%20Evaluation%20FINAL.pdf